Koryak | Northeast Siberia, Reindeer Herders, Shamanism | Britannica (original) (raw)

Koryak, indigenous people of the Russian Far East, numbering about 7,900 in the late 20th century and living mostly in the Koryak autonomous okrug (district) of the northern Kamchatka Peninsula. The Koryak languages belong to the Luorawetlan language family of the Paleosiberian group.

The Koryak are probably indigenous inhabitants of the northeastern shores of the Sea of Okhotsk, whence they spread eastward. At the time of the Russian annexation (late 17th to early 18th century) there were about 13,000 Koryaks. Some were nomadic reindeer keepers of the inland areas, while others were sedentary coastal dwellers who engaged in sea-mammal hunting and fishing and used dogsleds for transportation. Coastal Koryak settlements (some of them fortified) consisted of semisubterranean winter dwellings and summer tents on poles.

There was no public authority among the Koryak, or any tribal or clan organization. Their customs included monogamous patrilocal marriage and patrilineal kinship. Professional and family shamanism was practiced, “transvestites” being considered the effective shamans. Wolves were regarded by the Koryak as their relatives, and an important place was accorded in their mythology to the raven.

Resistance to the Russians weakened the Koryak, and they became an easy prey to their nearest neighbours to the north, the Chukchi, whose raids, and a smallpox epidemic in the late 18th century, reduced the number of Koryak by half. The Koryak still largely follow their traditional occupations.

This article was most recently revised and updated by John M. Cunningham.